


Cigars and Selfishness

by CaptainLordAuditor



Series: New Americana [2]
Category: Newsies - All Media Types
Genre: Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Canon Era, Davey is a socialist, Implied/Referenced Underage Sex, Jewish Character, M/M, Missing Scene, Trans Male Character, Trans Racetrack Higgins, Underage Smoking, i wrote this with the intention of spot being trans too but it doesnt come up, idk man its abt race and its titled cigars and selfishness thats a thing thats there, jewish newsies, let's make that its own Thing, past emotional abuse, sorta?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-14
Updated: 2018-04-14
Packaged: 2019-04-22 21:31:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,433
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14317572
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CaptainLordAuditor/pseuds/CaptainLordAuditor
Summary: Racetrack Higgins sold his mother for a box of cigars and a pair of pants.





	Cigars and Selfishness

**Author's Note:**

> Have some fucking Jewish Race, because the world needs more of it. I wanted to illustrate this one, too, but my tablet was like "nope" so here it is unillustrated for now.

They say Racetrack Higgins sold his mother for a box of cigars.

It’s not quite true; sometimes he thinks he’d sold her for much less, sometimes much more.

Today’s one of those days when it feels like less. He’s sitting on the penthouse, chewing on his cigar and thinking.

His mother came here from Russia. _Looking for a decent life,_ she’d always said. And damn if she hadn’t found it. Working six, seven days a week, sixteen hours a day. But it wasn’t Russia. Race, she’d always said, should be grateful for that. It wasn’t Russia.

He hears steps behind him and half turns to see Davey. “You still looking for Jack?” It’s half out of his mouth when he realises he’s not speaking English, and he scolds himself internally, but it’s too late.

Davey nods. “You haven’t seen him?”

He replied in the same language. In for a penny, Race supposes. He shakes his head. “Maybe check Medda’s.”

Davey heaves a sigh and sinks down next to Race. “That’s what Specs said. I figured I’d check here first. It’s too late to go over there now, with Snyder out there looking for us.”

Race offers him his cigar; Davey waves it off. “You know what’s great about New York?”

Davey thinks about it for a moment. “Is it that the world’s your oyster if you’re famous?”

“Nah.” Race takes a puff on his cigar. “In New York, goyim don’t burn your house down.”

Davey looks at him. “Racer,” he leaves the name in English, “neither of us has a house.”

Race grins. “Exactly.”

Davey stares at him for a moment, and then they both laugh. It’s the sort of joke that’s only funny because of the dark truth behind it, which makes them laugh all the harder. Too soon, Race remembers everything else and his laughter fades.

“It ain’t ungrateful, is it?” He can’t bring himself to say the word in Yiddish, so he switches to English.

“What ain’t?”

“Going on strike. I mean, things ain’t so bad, right? We’s got jobs to strike _from_ . We’s still, like… citizens.” It’s something that’s constantly on his mind, and he can’t help but picture what his mother is thinking about the strike, if she’s heard about it. Sure, seeing the paper with the gates and the newsies and the big words **Newsies Stop The World** made him feel giddy, but isn’t wanting attention bad? It’s always been dangerous, especially for Jews.

“Of course not!” Davey shifts himself to lean closer to Race. “Look at it this way. We’re out there every day, wearing out our voices and shoes, selling Pulitzer’s and Hearst’s papers. Without us, their papers don’t get sold, and no one reads them. They get everything from our work, and decide they _still_ want more.”

Race thinks about this for a moment. “But they’s the ones that makes the papes.”

“So? Under - look, making something doesn’t matter if nobody buys it.”

There’s a certain logic to that. No doubt if using a printing press or typewriter was as easy to train as sewing shirts, there’d be more owners treating the people who made the papes like they treated newsies. That’s how everything else is.

“Why?” Davey asks.

Race chews his cigar. He doesn’t want to talk about his mother, so he says, “I got a sweetheart in Brooklyn, is all.”

“Let me guess,” says Davey. “She says she’ll follow Spot Conlon’s lead on this.”

“Something like that.” Race sighs. “I know Conlon. He’s trying to be practical. They gotta eat. ‘Cause we doesn’t have to, I guess.” He taps the ash off the end of his cigar and takes a drag.

Davey watches him. “Is it true? What Buttons said.”

“Hmm?”

“That you sold your mother for a box of cigars.”

Race snorts. “‘Course it ain’t.” Davey seems to relax, and Race clasps his hands behind his head. “I got a pair of pants out of the deal, too.”

Davey looks at him like he’s crazy, but Race decides he doesn’t care. He doesn’t much feel like explaining the way his life works, why he does what he does. If Davey asks, he asks.

“A pair of _pants_?”

Race thinks about how that must sound to someone like Davey, who’s known him for two weeks and has, in that time, proven as unobservant to anything but his brother as Race’s mother was to her children. He can reveal himself, he supposes, but without Jack or Spot there to set Davey straight, it’s a risk to every scrap of stability he’s got.

Racetrack has never been one to hedge his bets. It’s how he ended up a newsie, how he got his spot in Sheepshead, how he became Spot Conlon’s sweetheart. Shit, it’s how he got his _name._ He stands up. “I’m gonna head out. You staying here tonight?”

Davey looks surprised by the sudden change in subject. “I…”

Race knows what he’s about to say - Davey ain’t got the nickel to spare, but he shouldn’t be wandering around this late, either. Davey’s new; he doesn’t know the tricks for staying away from Spider that Race does. “Here.” Race hands him a nickel.

Davey looks at it. “Wh-are you crazy? Where will _you_ sleep? You need this!”

Race climbs onto the fire escape. “Nope.”

Davey leans his arms on the edge of the building and hangs his head. “Race, _tell_ me you’re not about to do something stupid and get yourself arrested.”

“I ain’t about to do something stupid and get myself arrested,” he says. “Happy, Mameh?”

“No.”

Race keeps heading down the fire escape, and he can hear Davey clattering down after him. “I’m going to Brooklyn, alright? If I ain’t back in the morning - well, I’ll be back in the morning.”

He hears Davey sigh. “Fine. I’ll - I’ll see you tomorrow.”

There are, as he walks to Brooklyn, things he tries not to think about. Like his family, or the strike, or what he’s about to do. Davey’s question keeps dragging him back to his family, no matter how much he tries to push it to the back of his mind.

He knows Davey’s probably puzzling over Race’s sudden departure, but he really doesn’t want to talk about the pants thing. It wasn’t a pair of pants, exactly - more the opportunity to maybe, some time in the future, wear a theoretical pair of pants.

But it was _there_. It was a possibility, a risk he had to take, and it paid off. Here he is, five years later, walking around New York like he owns the place at ten at night, with pants and vest and short hair.

And okay, it wasn’t the reason, in the moment, that he’d done it, but if he hadn’t done it he wouldn’t have been able to realise that the pants - and everything that came with them - were something he wanted. He’d had a choice: A box of cigars, or staying with his mother who alternated between yelling and guilt tripping or ignoring his existence entirely. He’s still not sure what made him do it, why he’d wanted them in the first place, but he’d stolen them and then gotten locked up in the Refuge. A week in there before he escaped, and the realization that his mother barely noticed his absence solidified it for him.

It doesn’t matter. He’s not one to dwell on the past. There’s things that Dinah Ivolgin did, and things Racetrack Higgins does, and they’re not the same.

He climbs up the building to the room he knows Spot sleeps in. Five years on the streets and ten months climbing up this path means he barely has to think about where to put his hands and feet before he reaches the fourth floor. Spot is sitting on his bed and comes over to open the window when he sees Race.

“What’s you doing here?” he hisses.

Race swings his legs inside. “Apologizing?”

Spot bites his lip, reaching for Race’s cheekbone. “Race, you look like hell.”

Race pushes Spot’s hand away. He knows he looks awful, but he’s better off than the others. Romeo’s nose is broken, Specs’ glasses are cracked and falling out of their frames, and who _knows_ what Crutchie looks like right now. Race’s bruises are nothing compared to that. “I’s fine. Look I - I know I said I’s here to apologize, but that ain’t really… you was right. About the strike. Only, I can’t back down now. I’m sorry, Spot. I don’t know what’s gonna happen, but I’s standing with ‘em. You deserved to know.”

Spot closes his eyes and nods. “I figured you’d say that.”

Race grabs his hand. “Hey,” he jokes, “It’s what you get for dating a Yid, right? We just can’t let things go.”

It’s true; it’s how they’ve survived this long. The only way to stay alive in the stubborn places they’ve been is to out-stubborn their neighbors. Babylon, Russia, New York - hell, Race knows first hand how hard it is to bend but not break. Eventually it’s too much, and you have to either fight or run, and Race is tired of running.

But Spot’s not Jewish; doesn’t have the heavy memory on his shoulders constantly, doesn’t know the truth behind what Race says or the way jokes like that can lighten the load. “That ain’t funny, Race.”

Race shrugs. “It’s true.”

Spot leans his forehead against Race’s. "I understand. You do what you gotta do. I just… I can’t. I gotta make sure my kids eat.”

“I know.” Race tucks his face into Spot’s neck and breathes in his scent, mumbling in Yiddish.

“You knows I can’t understand you when you does that,” Spot says affectionately.

Race smiles and pulls his head up. “Just something Davey said when we went to stop the wagons.”

“Yeah?” Spot asks. “What’s it mean?”

“It means….” Race traces shapes on the window sill. It’s not something he heard often, growing up, and he doesn’t want to think about why. “It means, ‘if I ain’t for me...who will be? But if I’s only for me, what am I?’”

“Race….”

“I ain’t trying to make you do nothing,” Race says quickly. “I’s just trying to explain what I’s doing.”

“Okay.” Spot chews his lip. “You’ll stay the night?”

“I was gonna. Gave my -” he’s cut off by Spot kissing him, and Race kisses him back.

Spot pulls away slightly. “You talks too much.”

“You’s always saying that,” Race replies. “I was gonna say, I gave my nickel to Davey so he don’t have to walk back with Spider around. So’s I’d be real glad if I could stay here.”

Spot shakes his head, staring at him. “You’s always welcome here.”

“Even when I can’t pay my rent?”

“You don’t gotta pay me nothing.” Spot tucks a hair behind Race’s ear. He’ll have to cut it soon. “But I can think of other things you can do if it matters so much.”

Race grins and kisses him again. He _like_ s this. He likes it when Spot picks him up, staggering a bit under his weight, and carries him to bed. He’s not particularly happy about the next part - the disadvantage to the deal he made is that they’ve both got more layers of clothing in between them, and Race doesn’t normally bind but he wasn’t about to risk it today. He likes it when they’re both naked, and Spot runs his hands over the bruises the Bulls left.

“They got you good,” he whispers.

“Could be worse,” Race whispers back. “I wasn’t arrested.”

Spot takes a deep breath. “Kelly?”

Race swallows a lump forming in his throat. “I don’t know.” None of them have seen Jack since the fight. A day and a half, and no idea where he is.

He kisses Spot. He doesn’t want to think about the strike, and right now he doesn’t have to. He tries to put a lot of unsaid things into the kiss, and maybe he succeeds, because when Spot kisses him back he feels all those things coming back to him in mutual whatever-it-is.

When they’re done, when Race is finished making Spot groan and Spot has finished doing the things that would, on any other night, reduce Race’s usual chatter to a wordless babble, they lay there, limbs wrapped around each other, blankets pushed down by their feet. It’s July, and on any other night, Spot would be as far from Race as possible, both of them falling off the edges of the bed, but tonight they both need closeness despite the heat. Neither of them would admit it, but they both know the other does, and that’s enough to justify it to themselves.

After awhile, Spot says, “I hates you, you know that?”

“You got a funny way of showing it.”

Spot chuckles. “You’s right, Race. About the strike.”

Race wraps his arm around Spot’s waist. “Yeah, I knows that. Things is bad, Spot. Jack’s missing and I got no clue what’s gonna happen next.”

Spot pauses. “If… if youse hold out two more days… then Brooklyn’ll come in.”

Race thinks about that. “Two days.”

“Yeah. Two days, or Kelly comes back.”

Race nods. “Okay.” He doesn’t ask what if Jack _was_ arrested and can’t come back, doesn’t say what he’s thinking at all. He keeps thinking about his family again, which is something he doesn’t want to think about. It’s been years since he saw his mother. There’s no way for him to go back, even if he wanted to. She wouldn’t recognize him, and Race is glad of that, because it means there’s no temptation to talk to her. He knows what she’d say if she saw him now, anyway; the same thing she’s probably saying about the strike, the same thing she said about him every time he needed the barest moment of her time.

Selfish. Entitled. Ungrateful.

So what? Sometimes, it’s okay to be selfish. Selfishness got him Spot. Maybe going on strike is selfish, but Race figures the gnawing hunger and aching bruises are enough payback for that.

“Hey.” Spot’s voice breaks into Race’s thoughts. “I love you. I knows you can’t say it back,” he adds when Race tenses, “I just wanted you to know.”

Race finds Spot’s hand and twines their fingers together. Spot’s right that he can’t say it back, not in English at least. Maybe in Yiddish? No, that’s even harder. But it’s true that he feels it back, so he turns his face into Spot and replies the only way he can, with a kiss.


End file.
